Julian Edgar, 50, has been writing about car modification and automotive technology for nearly 25 years. He has owned cars with two, three, four, five, six and eight cylinders; single turbo, twin turbo, supercharged, diesel and hybrid electric drivelines. He lists his transport interests as turbocharging, aerodynamics, suspension design and human-powered vehicles.
The importance of being well-lit.
Inevitably anyone who works (in paid employment) and also works on their own car (for fun) will spend a lot of time twirling the spanners in the middle of the night. And that means that – again inevitably – they’re going to have invest in some decent lighting. (It always puzzles me when I go into poorly-lit workshops – you can literally see the mechanics feeling around for things that – with decent lighting – would be obvious.)
As with most houses around here, mine is built on stilts and so the de facto workshop is located under the house. It’s dim under there, even in the middle of the day. The lighting that came with the house comprises two double fluorescent battens – for an area of about 60 square metres. Not good. I rigged some Portaflood-style 150W directional incandescent bulbs over my workbench, but the rest of the space remained pretty dark.
So what to do? I was undecided… so did nothing for two-and-a-half years.